Periodically, I visit my parents’ house and pick through the material vestiges of my childhood. Old toys, broken knickknacks, and drawings rendered in crayon litter their dusty attic. My mom, being the mother she was, tucked them away as small monuments to her child’s journey through life. I’m happy she did.

During one of these visits in 2008, I ran across this curious artifact of my early education. It’s one of my kindergarten spelling workbooks, still filled out in my meandering 5-year old hand all these years later.

   

As I flipped through its pages, memories of my kindergarten year — 1986 — began to bubble up from the deepest corners of my brain. I remembered the workbook’s contents surprisingly well: it contained simple words with letters omitted, replaced with blanks in which I scrawled awkward glyphs.

I recalled having my spelling knowledge put to the test on primitive PCs of the day, which I had always assumed were Apple IIs in retrospect. But when my eyes fell upon the famous IBM logo printed on the cover, a strange realization washed over me: IBM taught me how to read.

[ Continue reading [ Retro Scan Special ] IBM Taught Me How to Read » ]

So that’s what belly buttons are for. (Dig Dug)

Discussion Topic of the Week: In your opinion, which is the superior system: Atari 2600 or Atari 5200? And I’m not talking tech specs.

Apparently Paul Revere owned a secret power plant in 1775.

Discussion Topic of the Week: How fast was your first modem? What year did you get it?

Every once and a while, I receive emails from people looking for a certain game, electronic toy, or computer from their distant past. I then pass it on to intrepid VC&G readers to crack the case.

The Clues

Jim writes:

Let me start by saying how wonderful your site is. Sure does bring back a lot of memories, thanks.

The game I’m looking for was played on my C64 (maybe the 128, but pretty sure it was the 64). The time period was the late 1980’s. I remember the game being called an “interactive comic book”. You played the game by being one of the 3 (I think this is the number) main characters in the book. Depending on what you did, the other characters would react to your actions. You could also “switch” to any of the other characters and play the game from their positions.

Kind of a vague description, but that’s about all I can remember about the game. I really hope that someone remembers what it is that I’m talking about.

Thanks
– Jim

The Search Begins

It’s up to you to find the object of Jim’s fuzzy memory. Post any thoughts or suggestions in the comments section below. Jim will be monitoring the comments, so if you need to clarify something with him, ask away. Good luck!

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Have a memory of a computer, video game, computer software, or electronic toy you need help identifying? Send me an email describing your memories in detail. Hopefully, the collective genius of the VC&G readership can help solve your mystery.

The original touch-screen game system.

Pop quiz: which video game console first featured a touch screen? (Hint: It’s not the Nintendo DS.) How about this one: Which handheld console first supported Internet connectivity?

Believe it or not, Tiger Electronics — a toy company famed for its cheap electronic games — came in first on both counts with the Game.com in 1997. (Sega Saturn was the first home console to support Internet in 1996).

I was a Game.com early adopter, having bought one close to its release. The wonder of its primitive touch screen alone seemed to make up for its deficiencies at the time, so I was pleased at first. The unit shipped with a built-in version of Klondike Solitaire and a Lights Out game cartridge, both of which showed off the system’s touch capabilities well. But my infatuation with the Game.com turned out to be brief.

[ Continue reading [ Retro Scan of the Week ] Tiger Game.com » ]

“Discover a new way to ‘Reach out and touch someone!'”

AT&T launched the VideoPhone 2500 in 1992 with high hopes that it would finally bring video calling to the masses. Ultimately, it fared no better than AT&T’s previous attempts at commercial video phones, all of which exited the market quickly after their introduction.

For $1599.99 ($2,486.19 in 2010 dollars), you received a single phone unit that could send audio and color video (at up to ten frames per second) simultaneously over a regular phone line. It worked its magic through a 19.2 kbps data stream, which is minuscule by today’s standards, but was state of the art in 1992. Unfortunately, the video functionality of the VideoPhone 2500 was useless without another $1599.99 phone to interact with — perhaps the fatal flaw in AT&T’s plan.

If you’re interested in learning more about the history of video telephone technology, check out my latest Technologizer slideshow, 132 Years of Videophones.

Discussion Topic of the Week: If you owned an easy-to-use videophone device — and everyone else had one — how often do you think you’d use its video functionality?

He soon landed with an embarrassing splash.

This Double Dragon scratch-off game card came from a pack of Topps “Nintendo Game Pack” cards that I bought, likely in a drugstore, circa 1989. Of all the cards in the pack, this one remains unscratched for whatever reason. Perhaps I wanted to preserve the mystery and potential of a single unscratched scratch-off card. After all, the cards become worthless and ugly after you impart jaggy scratch lines all over those silver little pads.

The reason Nintendo and the scratch-off concept share the same milieu is that each card presents the owner with a game of sorts. Once you scratch a pad, you reveal a graphical symbol that determines your fate depending on the directions printed on the back of the card. In this case, you need “1 arrow and 2 kicks or 3 elbows or 4 punches” to win. I’m not sure how many variations of the symbols Topps printed under those silver pads, but I hope there was more than one. Otherwise, if you had multiple copies of the same card, the “game” might have unfolded in exactly the same way if you scratched the same pads.

Nintendo Game Packs cards featured Super Mario Bros., Punch-Out!!, and The Legend of Zelda as well, although those were too irresistible for me to not scratch off, so none survive in tact in my collection.

A number of websites examine these cards in more detail. This one has scans of all the cards in the series. Another one features photos of the stickers that came with each pack of cards — I remember plastering those all over my walls as a kid. I may have a couple of the uglier stickers left un-peeled somewhere. If I ever find them, I’ll probably just burn them as an offering to Hgnagg, the God of Nostalgia.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Did you collect trading cards as a kid? What kind(s)?

Every once and a while, I receive emails from people looking for a certain game, electronic toy, or computer from their distant past. I then pass it on to intrepid VC&G readers to crack the case.

Our latest Fuzzy Memory seems similar to our last one in some respects (a top-down D&D like game with RPG elements), but hails from an earlier time. Can you help Aaron figure out what it is?

[ Continue reading [ Fuzzy Memory ] Thy Character is Too Powerful » ]

Like comparing Apple IIs and Oranges+Twos

There was a time in the early 1980s when one could find ads for many different unauthorized Apple II clones in the back of just about any computer magazine. The ads promised inexpensive reverse-engineered copies of the Apple II computer hardware designed to use Apple II software and peripherals. Apple wasn’t too happy about the illicit machines and even managed to win some import bans on them in the US, but many remained on the market.

Some folks, like my father, even bought underground replicas of the Apple II motherboard, copied the Apple ROMs onto EPROMs, and built their own Apple IIs from scratch. It was a lot cheaper than buying directly from Apple, so many people with the technical know-how chose that path.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever owned or built an unauthorized Apple II clone? Tell us about it.

Every once and a while, I receive emails from people looking for a certain game, electronic toy, or computer from their distant past. I then pass it on to intrepid VC&G readers to crack the case.

The Clues

Tammo writes:

Hi, i am looking for a game i played about 10 years ago and i cant remember the title of. It is an rpg/adventure game out of “250 Best Arcade Games” in 1998. It’s a top-down game where all monsters/npcs/items are represented by tile icons. It’s a d&d’esque game allowing the player to build a party of characters at the beginning and then level them up in their chosen class. Race is chosen also and one of the races is ‘nephilim’. It was a very expansive game world even in just the trial version. Sorry but i can’t remember any more details. I am looking for a place to download this game, if it exists anywhere.

Thanks you very much and i look forward to your response.

The Search Begins

It’s up to you to find the object of Tammo’s fuzzy memory. Post any thoughts or suggestions in the comments section below. Good luck!

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Have a memory of a computer, video game, computer software, or electronic toy you need help identifying? Send me an email describing your memories in detail. Hopefully, the collective genius of the VC&G readership can help solve your mystery.